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For a General, a Tough Mission: Building the Army

FORT KNOX, Ky., Feb. 1 - From his office in the command center here, where dozens of recruiters answer questions about military life via e-mail and chat rooms, Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick is trying to retool the Army's strategy for fighting a war within a war: persuading young people and their families that the military is a good choice, even when combat duty is almost certain.

The general has plans to attract teenagers with video games, Web sites, cellphone text messages and helicopter simulators in the back of 18-wheelers. He wants to win over parents through commercials on the Food Network, visits to rodeos and Nascar races, and recruiters who have recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and can address concerns about war.

And if that fails, General Bostick also has cash: $40,000 in bonuses for some recruits who take dangerous jobs; $1,000 for soldiers who persuade friends to sign up.

"We have a responsibility to tell the Army story," General Bostick said. "Recruiting is in the limelight, so we have to work harder."

General Bostick described the Army's strategy in his first extensive interview since taking control of reserve and active-duty recruiting in October. A former assistant division commander in Iraq, he now manages roughly 8,000 military recruiters nationwide, hundreds of civilians at Fort Knox, an advertising budget of about $200 million, and a horde of marketing tools, including a fleet of 13 tractor-trailers retrofitted to show off the Army's latest technology.

But General Bostick, 49, an engineer with a master's degree from Stanford who is known for his calm demeanor, still faces a daunting challenge. Last May, the Army retrained its recruiters on ethics after several were found to have cut corners to enlist unqualified soldiers. And for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Army, the Army Reserve and the National Guard all fell short of their recruiting goals. The active-duty Army missed its target of 80,000 recruits by about 8 percent, its biggest shortfall since 1979.

Since then, the results have been more mixed. The Army reached its monthly targets for October, November and December. But in at least one of those months, General Bostick said, more than 10 percent of the recruits had scores on the military's aptitude test that were near the bottom of the scale -- more than double the annual 4 percent limit set by the Department of Defense.

The Army's monthly goals were smaller, too. Recruiters sent 2,697 fewer active-duty recruits to basic training from October to December than they did during that period in 2004. Its goals for summer have been increased to make up the difference.

David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland, said the Army was struggling to compete with colleges and with private-sector companies. Parents, too, are pushing their children away from a military career, fearing that they will be assigned to combat.

"Recruiters are having a tougher and tougher time," Professor Segal said. "The economy is growing, and there is more and more opposition being voiced by parents and at high schools."

General Bostick, who described his new job as "very tough," said he was optimistic about the Army's ability to find, recruit and enlist the 105,500 soldiers it needs this year for the Army and Reserve.

He said recruiters had already signed up half of the 10,450 active-duty soldiers the Army hoped to send to basic training in July, the month with the largest quota. Though at least 20 percent will drop out before boot camp, he said, it is a sign of "steady improvement" nationwide.

Most other branches of the military, including the Marines and the National Guard, have met or exceeded their recruiting targets.

General Bostick attributed the Army's progress primarily to 1,200 recruiters added last year. The Army accounts for 70 percent of the troops serving in Iraq, and about a third of its recruiters are now combat veterans, he said.

"There is valid concern by the parents and those that are being recruited about the war," he said in the hourlong interview. "So these veterans who are coming back and able to tell their story and talk about how well trained they were and how well led -- their experience in Iraq is really helping the environment."

General Bostick said he planned to give recruiters better leads and guidance. All new recruiters, for example, now receive a nine-page document offering suggested responses to thorny questions, like "Is the Army all about killing?" (Answer: "The Army is not about killing anyone, it is about supporting the United States, and when necessary, defending it at home and abroad.")

Fort Knox is the hub of these efforts. In the brick buildings that have been the recruiting command's headquarters since the mid-1990's, hundreds of soldiers and civilians try to figure out ways to inspire people to volunteer.

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GoArmy.com, the Army's recruiting Web site, went live in February 1996 and is run from the main building here. General Bostick said chat rooms had become one of the command's most promising tools.

Each month, about 20,000 people read or post messages in the forums, according to Army figures. Nearly 50 civilian contractors at Fort Knox respond to their queries.

They work as late as 2 a.m. in a lecture hall stocked with new computers and telephone headsets. On a recent afternoon, several answered online questions about what to take to boot camp and which jobs were eligible for bonuses. A recruiter speaking Arabic tried to persuade someone on the telephone to become an Army linguist.

General Bostick said that the online recruiters identified about 1,700 people last year who were thinking about enlisting. Of these, 405 signed up, a percentage he said was far better than what recruiters could do making cold calls.

To help draw people to the Web site, General Bostick said, the Army must raise awareness of what it has to offer, both among teenagers and the people who influence their lives. According to the Army's advertising and media division, about 20 percent of the media budget now pays for appeals to parents on Home & Garden Television and the Food Network and through other outlets. Appeals via text message could start soon, possibly with a new Army slogan.

General Bostick said the Army was also expanding its relationship with Nascar, the National Hot Rod Association and the Professional Bull Riders Association. According to the plan, recruiters will visit schools and malls a few days before an event, offering free tickets and the chance to meet famous drivers or bull riders.

And there are other toys meant to attract, including the customized vehicles. The Army used to rely on simulated rock walls to spur interest, said Lt. Col. Mark V. Lathem, commander of the battalion that manages the fleet. "Now it's more like an Army version of 'Pimp My Ride.' "

At the building where the vehicles are designed and loaded, a black Hummer H2 with an Army logo had a high-end audiovisual system and three flat-screen monitors. Two of them showed Army footage from Iraq, accompanied by the Toby Keith song "American Soldier," and the third displayed images from an Xbox video game. A few feet away, an empty truck trailer was about to be transformed into an exhibit of the 21st-century soldier, with displays on the latest in underwear and night-vision goggles.

On the road, Colonel Lathem said, were the "aviation van," with the chassis of a helicopter attached to a computerized simulator, and the new Special Forces vehicle, which includes a simulated parachute drop. The trailers, Colonel Lathem said, cost about $1 million each.

The payoff for all of this is one piece of paper --a "lead card." At a busy event, about 50,000 people fill them out, giving names, addresses and phone numbers to the Army, Colonel Lathem said.

Gary M. Bishop, chief of the advertising and media division, said the Army also mailed about 10 million to 15 million lead cards to teenagers each year, their addresses pulled from Selective Service registrations and private databases bought by the Defense Department.

The cards are usually funneled to local recruiters. But last year, the Army began centralized screening at Fort Knox, with 35 civilians poring through 135,000 lead cards from April to September. About 86,000 were discarded because of errors or phony names or because the sender was not qualified to serve.

Still, the process yielded 273 new recruits. And the Army plans to expand the program.

But some of the officers who helped build the Army's sophisticated recruiting system say its influence may be limited. Col. David Slotwinksi, a former chief of staff for Army recruiting who retired in 2004, said the numbers and the quality of recruits were cause for concern.

"You're in a protracted conflict, and the only way to succeed is to build inside the nation a willingness to fight and sustain the course," Colonel Slotwinksi said.

General Bostick acknowledged the problems. "We have a tough mission," he said.

But, he added, "This is our job, and we're going to do it the best we can."